Cult launches Mindscape app ahead of World Mental Health Day

Independent creative agency Cult has launched voice app, Mindscape, offering front-line support to people suffering from anxiety or a panic attack.

The app, launched prior to World Mental Health Day on Wednesday 10th October, combines voice technology and is the first product to be created by the agency’s new offering - Cult Experiment - an innovation lab that specialises in creating products that integrate ‘emerging technology with human need’.

Mindscape combines voice technology, AI and neuroscience-based music therapy to support positive mental health and was created with MassiveMusic and Voxly Digital and in collaboration with the UK’s largest mental health charity Mind’s Haringey branch.

Cat Turner, chief creative officer and co-founder of Cult said:“Agencies like ours very rarely have the opportunity to work on a brief without borders and the Experiment offers us this opportunity. To think creatively without restriction is our approach to work at Cult, and with a reputation of first-to market creative work, the Experiment was a natural extension of this. As a successful creative agency, working with some of the biggest brands in the world, we are well aware of the criticism that surrounds technology and the statistics that show how all forms of digital media affect mental health. Mindscape is the culmination of these learnings, paired with emerging technology - this is the ultimate creative process and one which we’ve relished developing over the past six months.”

Aifric Lennon, music/mind researcher at MassiveMusic said:“We used evidence-based methods when composing Mindscapes music to ensure that the bespoke sounds that we created incorporated scientifically proven, sonic features to aid in specific scenarios. The next step was to develop prescriptive compositions to cater for the four unique scenarios that we wanted to address.”

Cult’s creative technologist, Jen Heape, added: “Mindscape pushes the boundaries of voice not only in its unique pairing of voice technology, AI and neuroscience-based music therapy, but also in the detail of the dialogue structure itself. We have pushed Alexa’s native voice as far as we can using SSML rather than simply falling back on a recorded voice over, which means that we can make agile amends at any time, while still maintaining a controlled tonality.